May 2008

The rift on Moonglow, caused by the privately funded completion of the Blackrock Detector has now openned a new doorway. Most people probably know that the Mage Counsil withdrew funding for its completion, until a mysterious source of money from a private source came about. Most of the funding and work completion was done quite secretly and in private.

After all that has already transpired with the Detector, we now enter upon a new phase where alliances shall be made. Will you be a servant of the Shadow Lords or be free of tyrany? You can just say no and die, or say yes and be given promises of power.

Walking into the main town from the Northgate Library of Moonglow, I could not help myself to have another look at the sink-hole that the Blackrock Detector has created. Just as with the vortecies of Magincia during the recent deamon battles, lighting was ejecting from the center of the crater. Mesmerized by the spectical, I wonder just a bit too close and was besieged by several lightning strikes.

Instantly transported to another plane, I found myself unable to move or speak under Andrew's control. Intriguingly, he turned a tarot card of fortune and then began his dissortation to entice loyalty to the Shadow Lords. For those who already know their loyalties to the Virtues, this short experience is still of worth the time, for your fate is predetermined.

Those who choose the "dark side" will be given a gift upon your return to Moonglow. Beware, rumor has it that one becomes Black-rock infected if you choose to serve the Shadow Lords.

I tend to think of the experience as a purification for those who will stand by certain values. What could one more death hold? You shall surely die, should you choose not to be a servant. I chose liberty. Just say no and your card shall be death.

If that is your card, be ready to start running North toward the Healers, since you will have a countdown of 5-4-3-2-1

In this installment of the update we have added a section about Fishing in the KR client as well as some Tailoring tips and tricks. We are currently working on an update about Treasure Map Hunting using the KR client which we hope to have live soon. If you have any of your own tips and tricks, there is a "Contact Us" link at the top of the guide that you can use to submit them. Please be sure to indicate how you would like to be credited on the page for your tip.

As Calvin Crowner recently stated, there is news of the Stygian Abyss expansion coming soon. And as the recent townhall in Bethesda Maryland revealed, they want to tweak the KR client before the launch of Stygian Abyss. Those two things should be an indicator that investing some of your time in learning the KR client is in your long term UO best interest.

This seems to have caused a fair bit of confusion. The Dread Warhorse can cast Bless and Strength on itself - when you use Animal Lore on it, it will show the stats including the effects of any buffs. When it's stabled, it loses these buffs (although of course it can always cast them again.)

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"Why do Artifact Level 1 Doom stealables have the same point value as Artifact Level 10 Dark Father drops?"

This was a good point raised by our TC testers, and we've broken out the artifacts by level, instead. (You'll probably see the changes early next week.) Instead of all major artifacts giving 10,000 points, they'll vary by level from 200 points for the relatively common level 1 and 2 artifacts to 25,000 points for extremely rare level 12 artifacts. Major Tokuno artifacts will count as level 10 - 10,000 points - as well.

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"I'm a fisherman - why would I want to turn in SoSes and MiBs instead of using them?"

Actually, you probably won't. With the next revision of the turn-ins (next week) pre-chest loot will be worth 250 points apiece, and the chest might contain a Fishing Net which is worth more points. Also, the Ghost Anchor and the Seahorse will be worth 25,000 points as well!

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"Why on earth would I want to turn in my old and rare holiday gifts for only 50 points?"

So "Holiday & Valentine Gifts" was a touch too broad a category - we don't want your Whispering Roses or that ancient Fruitcake after all. You may or may not think all of these are worth more as points than as collectibles - certainly I know I'm not giving up ALL of my old things - but I certainly have a lot of duplicates lying around. (A LOT of duplicates... man. *looks around at heaps of old boxes*) Here's the actual list of the items that can be turned in for 50 points apiece:

Snowglobes

Snowflakes

Holiday Cards

Holiday Trees

Poinsettia

Holiday Tree Deeds

Candy Cane

Pile of Snow / Glacial Snow

Holiday Bells

Holiday Candles

Holiday Statue

Mistletoe

Reindeers

Snowman

Holiday Wreath

Holiday Timepiece

Valentine Cards

Rose in a Vase

Red Velvet Box (NOTE: this is for the container ONLY. If you turn in a box with stuff in it you'll still only get 50 points.)

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"What happened to the Potted Cactus that was on the reward list last Friday?"

We made some last minute tweaks and changes on Monday, so it got taken out. I suspect a nefarious plan...

(I always suspect a nefarious plan. And with this team, I'm usually proven correct :P)

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Correction!

There was a typo in the Test Center notes (now corrected) - the Luck Jewelry, when worn as a set, gives 400 Luck, not 300. Sorry!

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QA Request

QA has been seeing reports of Greater Dragons appearing to be running in place - as if they'd run out of stamina. They're having some trouble reproducing the issue, so if you see this occur with your dragons, we'd love it if you sent in as much detail as possible to uobugs AT ea DOT com (or use the Feedback form.) Helpful details would include what you were doing at the time (walking, running, fighting, etc) and the stats of the dragon. Thanks!

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What's To Come:

We're letting Publish 53 bake on TC over the weekend - Origin should be seeing it sometime next week, barring really unusual bugs reported. In the meantime, travelers to Moonglow have noticed unusual occurances in the area formerly occupied by the rift, and some have met a very strange gentleman named Andrew...

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Town Hall News:

Look at our schedule to find out when we'll be near you. Remember to RSVP so we don't run out of chips and dip!

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Fansite News:

Several player-run events are coming up, as reported by our correspondant at Whispering Rose Radio:

Rares Collector's Festival & The Council of Rares on Lake Superior:

Rares Collector's Festival & The Council of Rares May 30th through June 1st on Lake Superior brought to you by DVI. If anyone has any questions or concerns please contact DVI via ICQ - 247-299-718 To find the Rares Festival house, walk west out of the Luna Gate, and turn South along the path. The house is the 2nd house south of where the path ends. There is a huge Auction list brought you by YGV Auctions of Lake Superior!

Sunday May 31st Join us at the Pacific Auction House on the Pacific shard. We have been auctioneering for your pleasure for 4.5 years now. Our motto is: Our Success is Your Satisfaction! Every Sunday at noon Pacific Time, 3pm EST.

WRR Announcements:

Whispering Rose Radio announces weekly Shard Chatter every Friday night at 7pm PST, 10 pm EST with Producer DJ Bearfoot and company. Contact us on www.wrrad.com for more info on how to talk live on internet radio during our show! Great UO topics weekly. Come join us...

Join us for Deal or No Deal UO Style for our weekly Cross Shard Event (All gold is awarded on shard of choice {1/3 on Seige} ) 3pm PST, 6pm EST on Lk Superior this week....And don't forget....we will see you at the Town Hall Meeting in San Diago at the end of July..be sure and RSVP!

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I know I have a fair bit of house organization to do in preparation for this round of turn-ins - I better get cracking! Have a good weekend, folks.

As part of our planned upgrades and other assorted cool stuffs we have workin', we're happy to share a preview of our new front page design. This note from Den Dragon, Stratics founder:

"We are proud to present a preview of the new direction Stratics is taking in terms of our central site's design and layout. As you may notice, internal content pages and news articles will still be utilizing our older design, until such time as we have all content (excluding network sites) migrated over to the new format. Our sincere hope is that you enjoy this new approach toward functionality and presentation - and that our further updates meet with your satisfaction as well. Note: There may be some issues resulting from viewing the site through certain browsers. If you notice any sort of strange happenings or funkiness with the page's appearance - such as bats flying out of your computer screen, or Jessica Simpson appearing at random on the page - please send a note including details of the problems experienced to: [email protected]. Thank you for your patience as this transition takes place!"

They came one after another, seemingly endless, utterly unbidden and yet so... utterly welcome.

There was a pause now, though, a break in the unending visits to his domain, and Andrew stretched out his awareness. He reached out, encompassing the slick, glassy tiles marking the boundaries of his small world. He followed the light of his candles as they shone into the darkness. Then the inevitable collision. The Ethereal Void.

His mind reeled at the sheer power and energies playing on the borders of his creation. Yet his paradise had been... despoiled. His masters had warned him, bidding him be patient, to seek first the corruptness lurking in the unwary. To reward them. To mark them.

He obeyed.

Yes, Andrew thought, he obeyed the shadows, and they rewarded him in kind. Immortality, intelligence, and power. His. It was with these abilities he found himself overcoming the sheer chaos that was the Void. There was a crack; a tear - a wrongness.

A wrongness that he knew was perfectly right. His masters had succeeded. They had found another world to consume. Now all he had to do was follow and join his brethren in service. Soon.

With a flash another hapless mortal appeared before him, frozen, completely trapped. Andrew shuffled the deck of tarot cards laid across his desk. The panicked fool was screaming thoughts inside his head, unable to speak aloud, yet Andrew heard every word.

He didn't know where this "Moonglow" was, but understood that soon enough it would be but one of many places where he showed himself. For now, it would serve well enough as an entrance to his realm.

In the midst of the greatest Stratics outage of all time, life is still going on within the Temporary Chesapeake Forum. You will need to register a new username for these temporary forums, but the process is quite simple.

Since most of the questions this week have focused on the upcoming Publish 53, I've gone ahead and made a small preview for everyone! Here are some of the things you can look forward to seeing on Test Center next week:

Bug Fixes:

Added a 15 minute timer for a guild to accept an alliance invite. This means guilds will no longer get stuck in "invite pending" mode. (For guilds in this situation now, once the publish goes live, GMs will be able to resolve the issue.)

Blood Oath can now be removed by eating an enchanted Apple or using Remove Curse spell

Added a Priest of Mondain to Felucca Prism of Light area

Zoo Collection points will now decay more slowly

Lady Sylvanis will no longer chase people quite so far

Repair Service Deeds now work for a Long Sword, orc, bear and tribal masks, Right facing Black staffs, Left Facing Crooks, and Left facing Clubs

Player vendors can no longer hold a shield and a two handed weapon

Moonglow blacksmith regions have been updated to use repair deeds

Player vendors should now recognize the increased bank storage

The spelling of Velocity has been corrected when a player is hit by an arrow with velocity

Taming Text will now appear over the head when pet is tamed.

Spring Cleaning Updates: The full list with point values will be posted with the Test Center notes next week, but here are some of the things you will now be able to turn in for points:

Holiday and Valentine's gifts

SoS and MiBs

Power and stat scrolls (all kinds)

Treasure maps

Artifacts (various kinds - minor, Doom, etc)

Grobu's Fur

Fishing Nets

And here are some of the house decorations and other items you'll be able to collect as rewards:

A special Luck bracelet and ring

Virtue tiles (to see what these look like, visit the Chamber of the Virtues in central Britain.)

A beehive

an archery butte

a firepit

a nest with eggs

a yucca tree, a stand of bamboo, or a potted cactus

a mounted Dragon head, for hanging on the wall

Horse Barding (for decoration only!)

And, of course, the war rages on...

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"Why does it seem like IDOCs aren't happening much at all anymore?"

I don't have a concrete answer for this one yet, but I wanted to acknowledge it and let you know that we do have engineers looking into it. (It's not a deliberate change.)

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What's To Come:

Our hardware issues delayed Publish 53 a bit (obviously) but we appear to be on track to get it to Test Center early next week. As soon as that's out the door, we'll be hard at work on 54!

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Town Hall News:

Look at our schedule to find out when we'll be near you! The next Town Hall is in San Diego at the end of July - if you're in southern California, now's not too early to RSVP!

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Have a great weekend, and a nice long one, for those of you celebrating Memorial Day. It's a holiday for the dev team, so you probably won't see us on your local forum, but the CS team is chained to their desks as usual!

Ah, yes, the monster with no sense of boundaries. While you can't actually ban them, they should respond to a firm tone of voice. Maintain your composure and say "Remove thyself" (and then target the monster.) That should send it packing!

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"Monster's Curse spell seems to have become more powerful - what happened?"

This was one of those wonky side-effects of working with ten-year-old code - what seemed to be a simple change to make the "Curse" buff icon show up seems to have altered the actual effect of the Curse spell when cast by NPCs. (It now reduces your resists as well as your stats.) We're investigating, and hope to have the situation resolved in one of the next few publishes.

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Focus Group Update:

We've got a solid core of people in the focus group at the moment, and invites are on hold. However, this will be a relatively long-running focus group, and we may need more bodies once we get them on a test shard, so I may invite further waves - keep an eye on your inboxes, and if you would still like to apply, go ahead! (But do note that I'm working through the stack first-come, first-serve.)

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What's To Come:

The Vanguard is active on all shards! Early scouting reports suggest that the threat may be spreading beyond Cove - be vigilant!

Next week (barring the usual miniature disasters - we're dealing with some hardware issues at the moment, so this is more subject to change than usual) should see Publish 53 on the Test Center, which will include some long-looked-for bug fixes and an update to the Spring Cleaning turn-ins - both new items to be turned in for points and new rewards! And the Shadowlords, of course, have not been idle...

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Fansite News:

Got several good bits today!

First from UOForums:

Whispering Rose Radio has released the source recording for the last Town Hall - get them on UOForums here! It's open to guests, so no one has to register.

Also, UOForums did an interview with Escaflowne, GM of the Vesper guild on Europa, which is located here. (UOForums is also looking to interview any/all guild GM's who'd be willing, as it's a good way to get their guild name out there, so if you're interested, Adam can be emailed at - adam (AT) uoforums.com)

The Lost Lands also has a special treat - an interview with Kilandra! Check it out here!

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Town Hall News:

If you missed the Rockville Town Hall, don't despair - check out the recording linked above, or look at our schedule (now including Seattle!) to find out when we'll be near you! The next one is in San Diego at the end of July, and we'll have plenty to talk about - so if you're in southern California, now's not too early to RSVP!

I’ve seen the slew of questions that arose from my last post, so I wanted to take the time to respond to a smattering of them:

What is the size of the team?

I will answer this as I answered the post to 4gamer.net: "As many as we need, but not as many as I'd like." I will tell you simply, I really enjoy the team as it is. The team relates well, plays well, and everyone enjoys their job.

Raining down fire on malcontents, or contributing to a legendary tale of good and evil that's lasted longer than any other community … yes, we do love our jobs.

Along with this subject, you may know that we lost a few folks in the transition from Redwood Shores. Fortunately we've been able to find other talent who both love the game, and are passionate about being part of the team. So what are we doing with these new people?

Three things: Fixing, designing, and training.

I will tell you we recently had to figure out where to put some new team members coming in next week without sitting them in Draconi's lap.

Next:

Why don't you tell us what's on the schedule?

Simply because the schedule is subject and subjected to changes every six hours to six days, and in the case of the Epic event ... six MONTHS. We discussed the content for the Epic Event last October, and had to postpone it. We are still on target for the bulk of the content by late May, and it's going to be a prelude to something realm-changing.

Some of the team saw the new art last week, and the Art Director himself was quite impressed. Our concept guys leapt at the chance to create this new content. Look for it in June.

"Hey! Wait a minute! You said in late May!" I just proved my point.

Why does it take so long to provide ?

We are constantly going through levels of refactoring while we're implementing fixes and content. Often, problems we expected to take several hours can extend to a couple of days. To make something worthwhile, and to fix more than we break takes time. We've actually been getting the Evil Eye from QA a lot the last few days. So we would rather make sure it's fixed -- when at all possible -- before releasing it.

In many ways you have all provided your own answers: "I've seen this for years and it's still broken." Historically, and presently the constant demand for content sometimes outweighs the time and resources to fix old features and systems. We'll try to do our best.

Not only for the community but also for the respect and love of Ultima itself, that’s what keeps us pressing forward. I'll try to avoid the kumbaya moment, but there is so much behind the scenes that we can't share and at times we tend to draw blood from our bottom lip because we can't.

I know you have all been very patient with multiple iterations of the Ultima Online team concerning bug fixes and content delivery. All I can say is thank you, and bow respectfully.

Finally:

What about KR? What about SA?

As far as Kingdom Reborn is concerned – We have a couple of fixes going in this publish: walking as a ghost across the bridge in the Wind dungeon, and a legacy toggle issue with pink tiles around cave entrances. I’m not a fan of the color pink, sorry about the delay on this. There are a few others, but know we’re still working on more goodies. Also, we’re still investigating most of the topics discussed here on the boards. To this end, in the near future we’d like to do some server load/stress testing. We’re discussing between 20-25 players chasing a few devs and GMs around. Please be prepared to share frame rates, machine and OS specs.

Also know all new content will be updated for both Kingdom Reborn and the Legacy clients for the Epic Event.

Sighs. So much for the light publish.

Begins to walk away...

"WHAT ABOUT Stygian Abyss?! ..." He pauses slightly, without turning, a mild chuckle pressing the corners of the room, “We announced the expansion over a year ago, and you should be hearing more news about it soon.” He continues a slow shuffle into a dark room, most likely to be eaten by a grue.

Door closes ... footsteps fade. Following you open the door to discover a beach at sunset. There is a blue page here.

-Why should you be a part of this focus group? (See above for the sort of experience we’re looking for – give details!)

If you are selected, you will receive an email that contains the information you need to get on the internal forums. Applications will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis, and we will be choosing applicants who have a wide range of playstyles and experiences.

Once again, the citizens of Britannia must answer the call to war! Reports have begun pouring in that the evil forces of the Shadowlords have begun to invade the various cities of the Pacific on both the Trammel and Felucca facets. With the realm reeling on its heels from the recent Magincia Invasion and in the wake of the terrible accident during Kronos' experiment in Moonglow, it would appear yet more bad news has come to Britannia. Is it theorized that when the corrupted rift opened on Verity Isle, the Shadowlords managed to escape the Void and have materialized in our world once more, despite vehement denial of their existence by the Royal Council of Mages and Captain Avery of the Royal Britannian Guard. Scouts have since discovered advancing forces in the coastal city of Cove and dozens of brave souls have taken up the perilous fight against the robed minions of evil.

The Vanguard Controllers - armed with glittering, obsidian blades and cloakedin shadowy robes - seemed to attract the most attention from the valiant fighters.Often they could be heard shouting in a strange language...

A particularly bold group of Britannians known as the Legendary Saints (L=S)charged headlong time and again into the fray and dispatched a fair amount of fiendish foes.I ran into them outside Cove's Bank.

They had an interesting bit of advice... and a mighty bold claim.I guess I should have heeded it, for as soon as I turned my backand climbed aboard my boat to sail off, they murdered me in cold blood.

This meant war...

What are the odds that a Dread Lord would have some friends in low places...?I let slip to a rather mouthy informant that these jackals were daring to claim a portionof Felucca for themselves, knowing that word would find its way to the territorial Fallen Lords.

They arrived to rectify the misunderstanding post haste.

For those of you just joining us...A group who killed a citizen 6 on 1 is complaining about unfair numbers.........while calling guards nonstop.

Make no mistake... the Fallen Lords are at no one's beck and/or call.They just like a good fight.

The conversation degraded from that point into claimsthat I was biased. And you know, they were right!

Yes. You heard it here first, folks...I am fully admitting to a lifetime of bias.I am, 100%, without a doubt, now - and always will be -biased against people who kill me 6 vs 1.

We have set up a set of Temporary Forums while we continuously work towards reviving the original forums.

I have a quick update regarding our downtime. As we've essentially been forced to pursue data recovery - which is a long process - we've set up temporary forums for our users. These can be at: UO Stratics Forums - Temporary Stratics Forums. Users will unfortunately need to create new accounts. We will do our best to migrate posts made here to the old boards when they come back, but can't make any guarantees (i.e. what you post here may be lost from history). There is an announcement on the boards that details the reason for the downtime and also why we chose VBB for the temporary forums.

Michael "Gallahan" BuckwaldExecutive DirectorStratics

Here is some information regarding the Temporary Forums and just what happened to our original forums, site, and database.

What's the deal with these forums?

These are temporary forums that we've put up so that communities across Stratics can continue without impediment while we work towards recovering the old forums. Again: if all goes well, these forums will be brought down in approximately five to seven days.

Why are these forums different?

We decided a while ago that VBulletin offered most of the features we custom built in to UBB out of the box - that would make it much easier for us to do things like forum upgrades, etc. We've been doing small alpha tests of VBB over the past month or so. In terms of this downtime specifically, VBB let us get these temporary forums set up and configured far faster than doing the same with UBB. Moreover, this will be a great opportunity for users to give us feedback on VBB and suggest features/customizations (keep in mind there are *many* "rough edges" here - our goal was to get these boards up ASAP).

What happened to the forums?

It's important to note that we take lots of precautions to prevent the loss of data. Stratics is hosted on five production servers. The forums sit on a brand new machine with eight SAS drives operating in a RAID configuration. In the unlikely event that machine loses enough drives for there to be data loss, we contract for both local daily backups as well as local backups to remote datacenters in New York and the mid-west. That's an eight drive RAID configuration with brand new SAS drives and three daily backups. In this case, our primary data center accidentally wiped the data off the forums server while trying to install a new operating system on a similar looking machine. At the same time, we discovered that the system administration firm we contracted with at the time had not performed any recent backups in spite of correspondence with us to the contrary.

Thus we were forced to send the machine out for data recovery by a leading firm. Unfortunately, the process is very slow. Thus these temporary forums.

Why are some forums missing?

Some forums were omitted for the sake of expediency in getting temporary boards up. No worries though - those forums that are missing will return.

I have a suggestions/comment/complaint - who can I contact?

Please feel free to contact [email protected]. Some one will reply within a few hours.

Ah, yes - important clarification needed here, and I'm sorry it didn't make it in the notes. The change only works on creatures created since the patch - it's not a retroactive fix. (An attempt at a retroactive fix would be quite risky - there's no good way to do it.) Sorry about the confusion!

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"I didn't know the Vine Cord Sandals were duped, and I spent a lot of money on them! How do I avoid this situation in the future?"

It's a very tough situation. There are thousands of different items in UO - some common, some rare, some truly unique. They come from dozens of different sources - some are looted from monsters, some are received from quests or events, some are stolen from NPCs. There is no easy way to catalogue each of them. Your best bet for information about the lore of a particular item is your fellow players - either in game, or on a forum like Stratics or UO Forums

If you are planning to buy an unusually expensive item, do your homework. Make sure the vendor you're dealing with has a good reputation, and make sure the item you're buying isn't... notorious. Because we are committed to cleaning up dupes, exploits, and cheats, there's no guarantee that an illegitimate item will still be there tomorrow, and owning these items - particularly in large quantities - puts you at risk of account action.

I'll be going through and sending out invites on Monday. Check the Herald for updates - I'll post a note when I'm done inviting so you don't wait frantically all week :)

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Escort Bugs - Followup

Thanks to everyone who sent in their experiences this week, we've pinned down the cause of the bug and have it on our list for a future publish. We also have a workaround until we get the fix out - if your escort doesn't complete, for whatever reason, you have to resign it by talking to the NPC - NOT by using the quest menu. The quest menu will take the quest off your list but not actually resign you properly, so you won't be able to pick up another one until you talk to your escort and get him or her to let you off the hook.

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Here's Where I Ask YOU A Question, Redux:

So last week, I asked about the Renaissance client, and I phrased it badly and apparently scared the daylights out of everyone, judging from the feedback I got. The problem is that "client" was a poor word choice in this case - many people thought I was asking about the 2D client overall, possibly preparatory to something horrible like removing it. I wasn't - not at all. Here's the longer version:

Every time we put out a new expansion pack (with a new splash screen, install disk, etc) it counts as a "new" client according to the backend systems that make patches. Our patching is admittedly old and arcane, and the way it works, we currently support installs all the way back to Renaissance. This means that if you put in a UO:R CD, install the game, and patch it, it'll work. It'll take a really, REALLY long time, but it'll work. Yes, it would be much faster to just download the UO:ML installer and patch from there.

That's kinda the point, actually. It'll speed up our patch creation process - and make the whole publish process a wee bit faster overall - if we stop supporting the Renaissance install disk. So, I was asking to get an idea of how many of you haven't reinstalled since... what, 2002? (Discontinuing support won't directly affect you, it just means that if something goes wrong and you have to reinstall, you'll have to download and do a short patch rather than install from disk and do a looooong patch.)

So, that's the long version. With that in mind, how many of you are using a Renaissance install?

Later in the day is the Town Hall, and check out Whispering Rose Radio's announcement below if you can't physically be there. The invasion will be the highlight next week, and you should start to hear details about Publish 53 in the week or two following - we have an end-of-month publish as the target.

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Fansite News:

Whispering Rose Radio will be at the Town Hall tomorrow!

Saturday May 10, 2008 - 12pm PST, 3pm EST DJ Landon of Whispering Rose Radio will be broadcasting the Maryland UO Town Hall Meeting LIVE on air. The UO TownHall Meeting is being held in North Bethesda Maryland at the Dave & Busters located in the White Flint Mall. The address is 11301 Rockville Pike. Phone number: (301)230-5151. Check here for more information.

We at WRR love attending these EA/Mythic UO Town Hall Meetings. So many cool people out there behind the pixels as well as getting to meet our support people in EA/Mythic!!

Make it a point to come ingame during this town hall meeting. Join us at the Dave and Busters ingame studio on Lake Superior for LIVE questions or submit questions on our WRR website shout box. North out of Luna and slightly East. We will be taking questions both places for the town hall meeting LIVE during the meeting.

Directly after the Town Hall meeting we will be doing Deal or no Deal UO Style on Lake Superior inside the North walls of Luna.

We hope to see you all there!

Vana Mana Rose *wink*

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Town Hall News:

The Rockville Town Hall is tomrrow! Head on out to see Draconi, Kilandra, Mesanna, and... Bob! They have some fascinating things to show you...

On Friday, May 2, at approximately 7 a.m. EST due to events beyond our immediate control involving a third party data center, we suffered a catastrophic systems failure. This systems failure has affected the databases that supported our forums, as well as our EVE, WAR, and L2 sites.

We are working diligently around the clock to restore the databases to working order. Restoration includes data recovery, a process that is very tedious and time consuming. At this time we unfortunately do not have a firm ETA on when this process will be complete.

We apologize to our dedicated community for this inconvenience and thank you all for your patience and your understanding during this down time. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please contact us at directors (at) stratics (dot) com

Some of you may have noticed a change in a certain specific pair of footwear yesterday morning. The various pairs of duped Vine Cord Sandals have been reverted to regular sandals. "But MINE weren't duped, surely!" you say. That is, regrettably, not true. There is only one real pair of Vine Cords. It was a unique item given out by an Event Moderator, and has been, like the Hooded Shrouds (now humble Monk's Robes) the victim of a particularly unpleasant exploit.

This change is permanent, and no refund or compensation will be given. Remember, all trading in UO is "buyer beware", and if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

-Why should you be a part of this focus group? (See above for the sort of experience we’re looking for – give details!)

If you are selected, you will receive an email that contains the information you need to get on the internal forums. Applications will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis, and we will be choosing applicants who have a wide range of playstyles and experiences.

Just a quick note to let everyone know we're still waiting to hear more detailed news from our data center on the status of the forums. The SysAdmin and team have been working all night and we do expect to have some details today. We will most definitely keep everyone updated with any new info we receive.

In the meantime, we do invite you to join us in the #ultima-online channel on Stratics IRC. You can connect to one of our Stratics IRC servers using your favorite IRC client. A list of popular IRC clients is available on our downloads page, and for those who wish to chat via their browser you can connect via our java IRC client*

Connect to irc.stratics.com (port 6668) or choose a server close to you from following list:

Get some info on account ages, escorts, and some interesting announcements...

"I have some quests that need honey, and I toggled the honey to be a quest item, but it won't let me turn them in! What's wrong?"

This is a fun one - if you have multiple quests that use the same item as the quest item, you MUST turn them in in order. The quest item will be tied to the highest quest in the list, so they have to be turned in to that quest giver, and then you can move down to the next quest on the list.

"I tried to reactivate an account/open a new account/add a code to my account, and I put in all the information, but when I hit "submit" it just refreshes. What's the deal?"p>

This is an intermittent problem that we've been having a heck of a time reproducing. Right now, the only solution is to back out and/or restart your browser and try again - the problem is intermittent, and you should get through after a few tries. (The codes do not get used, nor do credit cards get charged, when this problem occurs - that we can say for sure.)

We would be immensely grateful if, when you encounter this problem, you send me an email (jdalberg AT ea DOT com) with the subject "UO Registration Issue" and let me know the details, including what browser you're using, its version, etc. The more data we can gather, the faster we can pin down the source of the problem.

"My account age doesn't seem to be changing... again. Is it just me?"

Good news, here - it's not just you, AND we believe we've fixed the problem. Over the next week or two, everyone should see their account age catching up to where it should be. (The displayed account age is determined per character, and it's only refreshed once a week, so it might take longer for some characters than others. For a good overview of the account age system and Veteran Rewards in general, read This KB article.

"Escort Bugs - QA Request"

If you've ever had a an escort either follow you around and not acknowledge that they've arrived, OR disappear without clearing your quest log, QA would like to hear about it! Specifically, they would like a) the type of NPC (Bride, Noble, etc) b) the location you found them and c) the location they wanted to go to. Send these to uobugs AT ea DOT com, or use the Feedback Form.

Here's Where I Ask YOU A Question

Are you playing with the Renaissance client? (The easy way to tell is by looking at the splash screen - the graphics that show up after you patch but before the login screen comes up. If that says UO Renaissance, you're using the Renaissance client! Also, if you installed off a Renaissance disk, that'd do it too.

If you ARE, please drop me some Feedback using the "Question" category and tell me so - we're trying to find out how many people are still using that rather antique install!

What's To Come:

Publish 52 will be hanging out on Origin over the weekend (it's also still on Test Center, and you're more than welcome to hop on there and hammer on the housing changes some more as well.

The War of Shadows is beginning, and Origin will face the Vanguard. Advance scouts report that Cove, Delucia, and Nu'jelm are the initial targets of the Shadowlord forces as they strive to disrupt Britannia's supply lines and demoralize its forces. Origin volunteer militia forces are encouraged to be prepared to defend those cities over this weekend.

Fansite News:

Napa Valley players, here are a few events for you!

Lord Nabin, High Council Sage of the Ancient Conclave of Wisdom guild and Whispering Rose Radio will be holding a special charity auction this Friday on the Napa Valley Shard.

THEN...on Saturday (May 3rd), WRR will be holding the Deal or No Deal UO Style at the same location at 3pm PST, 10pm EST. Possibly win up to 10mil! All gold is awarded on the shard of your choice. Check out the link here for more information on this weekly cross shard game! Thanks everyone! Vana Mana Rose *wink*

-Town Hall News:

The Rockville Town Hall is next week - if you haven't RSVP'd, please do so! This is not a Town Hall you're going to want to miss, as we'll give some insight into the coming conflict.

A Very Special Announcement Leurocian's baby girl Kaelynn Grace Malott was born at 11:18AM this morning. She weighs 8lbs, 3oz, and is 21 1/4 inches long. Mom and baby are just fine, and Leurocian's positively bursting with pride. So if you don't see him around for a while, you'll know why!

An account cannot have characters in different factions on the same shard

Removed 30 day character age requirement

“Young” players cannot join factions

“Young” players will be removed from guilds that join factions

One vote in faction elections per account

Only one character per account may run in the elections

Quit time reduced from 7 days to 3 days

House Placement Changes

This publish implements several changes to prevent house placement exploits.

15 day character age requirement to place or trade a house

Water barrels/magic fields/etc will no longer block house placement

When a house is placed on top of a moongate, the placer will get a message about placement being blocked, and the moongate will be destroyed (at both ends.)

IDOC behavior (houses that collapse through decay)

When an IDOC drops, housing cannot be placed on the lot for a random amount of time

Items that drop from the IDOC will have protections against scripted looting

House placement tool will have a cooldown if used too many times in a given time period

Must now wait one hour after building a home before demolishing it (previously 15 minutes)

Spring Cleaning 2008

Ah, how time flies. Spring has come once again to Britannia, but the sweet smell of blossoming flowers outside our homes can’t belie the memories of battles fought long so very long ago. Or is that the chest overflowing with Ophidian weapons in the corner? Or maybe it’s the bag of cursed artifacts hidden upstairs?

Time to cleanup, Britannia!

Publish 52 institutes the first round of Spring Cleaning collections and rewards

Four NPCs around the world collect items in exchange for tickets

The tickets can be redeemed for rewards in a new community collection

Turn-in items

Copper Shilling

100pts

Planesword

100pts

Planeshield

100pts

Ophidian Rations

Can accept stacks of 1, 10, or 100

100pts per Ration

Ophidian Orders

250pts

Slippery Snake Skins

400pts

Silver Crown

500pts

Power Weapon

650pts

Magincia Rubble

800pts

Vanquishing Weapon

1.000pts

Mystic Weapon

2,000pts

Ophidian Journals

2,500pts

Staff of Pyros

2,500pts

Vorpal Blade

2,500pts

Ophidian Weapon (Power)

3,500pts

Cursed Artifacts

5,000pts

Ophidian Weapon (Vanquishing)

5,000pts

Ophidian Weapon (Mystic)

7,500pts

Berserker's Scythe

10,000pts

Gold Sovereign

10,000pts

Ophidian Berserker's Bardiche

25,000pts

Inavlis's Burchete

2,000,000pts

Rewards

Shirt: "I survived the Ophidian War"

1,000pts

Shirt: "I survived the snakes on the plains"

1,000pts

Shirt: "I saved the day and all I got was this fancy shirt"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Free Ricardo!"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Hang Ricardo!"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Magincia Pride"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Minax is #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Council of Mages are #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "True Britannians are #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Shadowlords are #1"

1,000pts

Nocturne Earrings

5,000pts

Sherry the Mouse Statue

10,000pts

Scroll of Alacrity

20,000pts

Snake Skin Boots

20,000pts

RBG Sash (Blue)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Yellow)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Red)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Green)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Orange)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Purple)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (White)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Black)

30,000pts

Knight's Close Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Norse Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Plate Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Bascinet

100,000pts

Knight's Gorget

100,000pts

Knight's Gloves

100,000pts

Knight's Arms

100,000pts

Knight's Legs

100,000pts

Knight's Breastplate

100,000pts

Knight's Breastplate (Female)

100,000pts

Descriptions:

Shirts

Comes with one phrase of choice

Blessed

Dyable

Nocturne Earrings

Grayish silver

Night Sight

RBG Sashes

“Royal Britannia Guard”

One color per Virtue/Town

Blessed

Scroll of Alacrity

Increase skill gain for 15 minutes in the scroll’s skill

Skill is randomly set once redeemed from the collection

Sherry the Mouse Statue

Larger than life statue of Sherry, in marble

Will be hooked into the Town Crier system in Publish 53

Snake Skin Boots

Random snake skin hue

+2% Poison Resist

Knight’s Armor

White

Each piece has 7% resists, +1 HP

Total: 42% resists, +6HP as a set of 6 items

Cannot be enhanced

Turn-Ins

Makiko the Samurai

Turnins:

Ophidian Journals

Ophidian Orders

Zento, Rokuon Cultural Center, 1st Floor

Lozat the Numismatist

Turnins:

Copper Shilling

Silver Crown

Gold Sovereign

Britain (Trammel), East Britain Bank

Calaid the Soldier

Turnins:

Ophidian Rations

Slippery Snake Skins

Britain (Trammel), North guard tower at Castle Britannia entrance

Siege: Guard tower southwest of West Britain Bank

Onoe the Soldier

Turnins:

Cursed Artifacts

Magincia Rubble

Planesword

Planeshield

Staff of Pyros

Vorpal Blade

Magical Weapons (Power, Vanquishing, Mystic)

Ophidian Weapons (Power, Vanquishing, Mystic)

Berserker’s Scythe

Ophidian Berserker’s Bardiche

Invalis’s Burchete

Britain (Trammel), South guard tower at Castle Britannia entrance

Siege: Guard tower southwest of West Britain Bank

Community collection box

Located with Onoe the Soldier

Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug where players that use the Basket of Herbs could lose 20 points of cooking when the effect wears off instead of 10 points of cooking.

Explosion potion should no longer go off and reveal the player if the player is in no play mode (character transfer).

Pet release gump should now closed the moment a player is in no play mode during a character transfer.

Players should no longer be able to stable pets while a pet trade gump is open.

An account cannot have characters in different factions on the same shard

Removed 30 day character age requirement

“Young” players cannot join factions

“Young” players will be removed from guilds that join factions

One vote in faction elections per account

Only one character per account may run in the elections

Quit time reduced from 7 days to 3 days

House Placement Changes

This publish implements several changes to prevent house placement exploits.

15 day character age requirement to place or trade a house

Water barrels/magic fields/etc will no longer block house placement

When a house is placed on top of a moongate, the placer will get a message about placement being blocked, and the moongate will be destroyed (at both ends.)

IDOC behavior (houses that collapse through decay)

When an IDOC drops, housing cannot be placed on the lot for a random amount of time

Items that drop from the IDOC will have protections against scripted looting

House placement tool will have a cooldown if used too many times in a given time period

Must now wait one hour after building a home before demolishing it (previously 15 minutes)

Spring Cleaning 2008

Ah, how time flies. Spring has come once again to Britannia, but the sweet smell of blossoming flowers outside our homes can’t belie the memories of battles fought long so very long ago. Or is that the chest overflowing with Ophidian weapons in the corner? Or maybe it’s the bag of cursed artifacts hidden upstairs?

Time to cleanup, Britannia!

Publish 52 institutes the first round of Spring Cleaning collections and rewards

Four NPCs around the world collect items in exchange for tickets

The tickets can be redeemed for rewards in a new community collection

Turn-in items

Copper Shilling

100pts

Ophidian Rations

Can accept stacks of 1, 10, or 100

100pts per Ration

Planesword

100pts

Planeshield

100pts

Ophidian Journals

200pts

Ophidian Orders

250pts

Slippery Snake Skins

450pts

Silver Crown

500pts

Power Weapon

650pts

Magincia Rubble

800pts

Vanquishing Weapon

1000pts

Mystic Weapon

2000pts

Staff of Pyros

2500pts

Vorpal Blade

2500pts

Ophidian Weapon (Power)

3000pts

Cursed Artifacts

5000pts

Ophidian Weapon (Vanquishing)

5500pts

Ophidian Weapon (Mystic)

7500pts

Berserker's Scythe

10,000pts

Gold Sovereign

10,000pts

Ophidian Berserker's Bardiche

25,000pts

Inavlis's Burchete

2,000,000pts

Rewards

Shirt: "I survived the Ophidian War"

1,000pts

Shirt: "I survived the snakes on the plains"

1,000pts

Shirt: "I saved the day and all I got was this fancy shirt"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Free Ricardo!"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Hang Ricardo!"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Magincia Pride"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Minax is #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Council of Mages are #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "True Britannians are #1"

1,000pts

Shirt: "Shadowlords are #1"

1,000pts

Nocturne Earrings

5,000pts

Sherry the Mouse Statue

10,000pts

Scroll of Alacrity

20,000pts

Snake Skin Boots

20,000pts

RBG Sash (Blue)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Yellow)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Red)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Green)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Orange)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Purple)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (White)

30,000pts

RBG Sash (Black)

30,000pts

Knight's Close Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Norse Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Plate Helm

100,000pts

Knight's Bascinet

100,000pts

Knight's Gorget

100,000pts

Knight's Gloves

100,000pts

Knight's Arms

100,000pts

Knight's Legs

100,000pts

Knight's Breastplate

100,000pts

Knight's Breastplate (Female)

100,000pts

Descriptions:

Shirts

Comes with one phrase of choice

Blessed

Dyable

Nocturne Earrings

Grayish silver

Night Sight

RBG Sashes

“Royal Britannia Guard”

One color per Virtue/Town

Blessed

Scroll of Alacrity

Increase skill gain for 15 minutes in the scroll’s skill

Skill is randomly set once redeemed from the collection

Sherry the Mouse Statue

Larger than life statue of Sherry, in marble

Will be hooked into the Town Crier system in Publish 53

Snake Skin Boots

Random snake skin hue

+2% Poison Resist

Knight’s Armor

White

Each piece has 7% resists, +1 HP

Total: 42% resists, +6HP as a set of 6 items

Cannot be enhanced

Turn-Ins

Makiko the Samurai

Turnins:

Ophidian Journals

Ophidian Orders

Zento, Rokuon Cultural Center, 1st Floor

Lozat the Numismatist

Turnins:

Copper Shilling

Silver Crown

Gold Sovereign

Britain (Trammel), East Britain Bank

Calaid the Soldier

Turnins:

Ophidian Rations

Slippery Snake Skins

Britain (Trammel), North guard tower at Castle Britannia entrance

Siege: Guard tower southwest of West Britain Bank

Onoe the Soldier

Turnins:

Cursed Artifacts

Magincia Rubble

Planesword

Planeshield

Staff of Pyros

Vorpal Blade

Magical Weapons (Power, Vanquishing, Mystic)

Ophidian Weapons (Power, Vanquishing, Mystic)

Berserker’s Scythe

Ophidian Berserker’s Bardiche

Invalis’s Burchete

Britain (Trammel), South guard tower at Castle Britannia entrance

Siege: Guard tower southwest of West Britain Bank

Community collection box

Located with Onoe the Soldier

Bug Fixes:

Fixed a bug where players that use the Basket of Herbs could lose 20 points of cooking when the effect wears off instead of 10 points of cooking.

Explosion potion should no longer go off and reveal the player if the player is in no play mode (character transfer).

Pet release gump should now closed the moment a player is in no play mode during a character transfer.

Players should no longer be able to stable pets while a pet trade gump is open.